These teachings relate to the control of switches used in power regulators and power amplifiers. A typical example, a variety of other examples being also available, is a buck regulator shown in FIG. 1. In this example, the two switches 26 and 28 control the switch node, 14. When the mosfet switch 26 is closed the switch node is connected to the supply. When the mosfet switch 28 is closed, the switch node is connected to ground. Mosfets 26 and 28 are known as the source side (or HS) switch and synchronous rectifier switch (or LS) respectively. If both mosfets are closed, this results in a very undesirable condition and possibly results in catastrophic failure. If both mosfet switches are open, the switch node is free to move as dictated by the inductor current until the body-diode in the mosfets starts to conduct. This mode of operation is also undesirable because the voltage drop across the body-diode results in lower efficiency and higher power dissipation. It is desired to have a control strategy that manages the timing of mosfets 26 and 28 such that they are neither on at the same time (cross conduction or shoot-through) or off at the same time for any significant period (dead-time).
A number of conventional control strategies have been proposed and implemented but the conventional control strategies do not have both high speed and insensitivity to high frequency ringing.